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Stadia Maps | Google Maps Platform alternative

Luke Seelenbinder on May 04, 2018

Hello Dev.to 👋 We're Stadia Maps, a bootstrapped provider of map tiles, static maps, and routing. We've been in operation for about a year, but ...
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markuuu profile image
markuuu • Edited

If your commitment is to transparent pricing, why is it that search engines yield no results with pricing when searching "stadia maps pricing" and your web site does not provide an easy to access pricing, at least not without requiring the user to first have to provide you with their credit card information?

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lseelenbinder profile image
Luke Seelenbinder

Hello @markuuu ,

We definitely want our pricing to be simple and transparent. I'm sorry you experienced the opposite. Perhaps this is a deficiency of our marketing site (something we are in the process of completely overhauling).

You can find our pricing readily available on our home page, no signup necessary: stadiamaps.com/#tiers. However, perhaps it's not always obvious there is more content on the page.

I hope this helps!

Luke

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shongololo profile image
shongololo

The scalable pricing scheme is great. I wish you the best.

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kepta profile image
Kushan Joshi • Edited

It is great to see an alternative to Google Maps, but I can’t see how Stadia differentiates itself from Mapbox ?

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lseelenbinder profile image
Luke Seelenbinder • Edited

That's a good question, Kushan. I also notice you're a developer at Mapbox. :)

You're right in that differentiation points are not immediately obvious (this is something we need to address in our marketing material).

Here's a few points:

  • Price: Mapbox utilizes usage-based billing, which is great, until your bill varies significantly month-to-month and it's impossible to budget. We use tier-based pricing with soft limiting, which means if you exceed your limits for a day or two, nothing happens, because we understand usage will vary from month-to-month. This allows consistent prices every month without worrying a spike in traffic will take your maps down. We also do not require a enterprise plan ($500 / month + usage) for applications such as asset tracking or login-protected pages.
  • Goals: Mapbox is a venture-funded startup, so their goal is to capture as much of the user-base as possible, and then extract as much value as possible from it for their investors (I don't mean this in the negative, it's just the reality of venture-funded startups). We are a bootstrapped startup. Our goal is to consistently create value for customers and slowly grow in a sustainable way. We plan to be here in 10 years by keeping our customers happy—if Mapbox doesn't keep their investors happy, it doesn't really matter if their customers are happy.